The past two years I’ve been trying to focus more on my passions, things that made me happy, for me this was art. My last year of high school, I only had to take three classes per semester and two of those classes were art and photo classes. Those were thankfully the only classes I had to go to during the day. I got to wake up later and get to go to classes I enjoyed. That year I got to learn new things from my photo class and heavily improve my skill in my art classes. Since my last year I had such a chill schedule, I was kind of sad I had to graduate and miss out on more of the classes I could’ve taken. I was also worried about the summer. Most of the time during my summer friends and I would just hang out and play video games, which is fun and all I just didn’t want to forget all that I learned from the last year. For me to improve over the summer I gave myself a challenge.  I went to the store and bought a bunch of notebooks. My rule for the summer was to draw ten pages every day. That might not seem like a lot, but I was only drawing like a page a week, so it was a big step up from that.

               The first couple of days were easy and I would even go over the ten-page minimum just to get a head start on the next day. It got much harder when I started getting busier. I would have to plan out the times I could draw on the days I was going out. If I didn’t plan so, I would be up till 2-3 am trying to finish my pages. I remember one night I got home at midnight and I didn’t do any of my pages. I worked until 4 am and when I finished, I jumped straight into bed, didn’t even bother to put anything away. That was the worst day of the challenge, but at least it was summer, and I could sleep in. 

               When I finished the first notebook, I marked the year and put it away, then I would pick a new notebook and start again. This went on and on for most of the summer and after just the first week I was getting very tired. My hand was always covered in ink and my hand hurt so bad by the end of the night. The fingers I use to hold my pencils were always red and kind of swollen. I’m quite sure my hands still a bit messed up from this challenge.

               By the end of summer, I was so happy to be done with this challenge. I didn’t hate doing it, but I did not like it. When I finished up the last notebook, I took out all the notebooks I filled over the summer. I started comparing the first notebook to the last. There was an enormous difference between the two, in terms of style and realism. I mainly practiced anatomy so that the people I draw wouldn’t look broken. Thankfully that was what improved the most.               In the end, I glad I did this challenge it helped me improve way more than I thought it would. I’m also able to draw more pages a day, not ten pages, but at least 3-4 a day. When I started college and started my art classes, creating my projects has been a lot easier because of all the practice during the summer. This summer I plan on doing the same challenge and hopefully it won’t be as bad as last time.

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